Wednesday, April 9, 2014

WikiLeaks has published what the anti-secrecy organization says is the penultimate draft agreement expected to be discussed later this month in Brazil at a global internet governance meeting co-hosted by 12 countries including the United States.

The 11-page document published on Tuesday by the secret-spilling website is based off of the recommendations submitted by more than 180 international contributors who cared to weigh in with their take on how they think the internet and its infrastructure should be governed ahead of a conference on the matter scheduled to be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil April 23-24.

According to the draft published by WikiLeaks this week and dated April 4, the committee tasked with preparing for the upcoming Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance — or NETmundial — are concerned about the impact that government-sanctioned surveillance is having on the privacy of the planet’s web-connected population and the infrastructure of the internet, as well as the repercussions being brought to light as cyber-weapons continue to be waged between adversarial states around the world as warfare remains a central yet shadowy activity within the digital realm.

The meeting, the conference website reads, “[W]ill focus on the elaboration of principles of Internet governance and the proposal for a roadmap for future development of this ecosystem,” and “represents the beginning of a process for the construction of such policies in the global context, following a model of participatory plurality.” Representatives from Brazil, France, Ghana, Germany, India, Indonesia, South Africa, South Korea, Tunisia, Turkey and the US have agreed to participate.